Car Dealer Problem

mk264

My wife bought a car from a dealer a couple of days ago and traded in our old car for £1500 of the purchase price of the new car.

The finance has been signed and my wife has received all documents and contracts for the new car.

My wife got a phone call today that on doing a check our trade-in car was found to be a previous write-off and had been patched together by the owner we bought it off. We were unaware of this when we traded in the car.

Anyway the salesman is now demanding that we either bring him back the car or pay him an extra £650. Do we have to pay this extra money? Do we have to either pay it or return the car? What are our options?

Thanks for any advice. We are going to phone consumer advice tomorrow but were hoping to get some of your opinions, experience or advice here beforehand.

MK

iolanthe07

Agree with albertross. If you genuinely did not know about the car's history I don't think the dealer has a leg to stand on. I wouldn't take your new one back there for a service though!

steady__eddie

Whenever I have traded a car in, the dealer has always checked the status of my vehicle on the insurance database thingy as soon as we had finished swearing at each other and reached an amicable contract. The last time that I changed, the dealer did a check and told me that my car was stolen. I had had it nicked 3 years previously but it was found after a couple of days with no damage so the ins. co. had the locks changed and gave it me back. Unfortunately they "forgot" to update their database so I had been driving a stolen vehicle for 3 years.
It seems a bit slipshod that the dealer in your case did not check the history of your p.x. before they accepted it and released your new motor.